The “Don’t Get Fat During the Holidays” workout

“I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do after Christmas.”

Take a cue from her, make sure you don’t wake up on January 1st having taken a huge step back in your fitness journey, filled with regret and Toblerone.

We are all given the opportunity to eat until we feel sick, and drink until we are sick. The end results of a gluttonous holiday break is more body fat than we started with. While it is not a bad thing to relax and enjoy ourselves, to abandon all our fitness goals for 2 weeks doesn’t make much sense.

Here is a a quick workout that you can do everyday to make some progress throughout the holiday break. We are going to assume that the gyms are closed, or you are perhaps away from your regular gym, so this is something you can do from home.

Here are a few commandments before starting this routine:

Do this every day

Do it early in the day

Give yourself some space

Have an aim in mind to make progress

Are you gonna eat that?

The Workout

The Strength Portion

During this part of the workout, take adequate rests between sets of 1 min – 1:30. Make sure you write down how many reps you have managed. You are going to be doing 3 sets to failure, and you want to be increasing how many reps you will be doing.

Focus more on overall reps than per set.

Pushups – 3 sets to failure

Squats – 3 sets to failure

Pullups if you can OR Vertical Pulls to failure

If you don’t know how to approach vertical pulls, watch the video below.

Handstands for time or handstand pushups.

The Conditioning Portion

You then want to just give your body a jolt with some HIIT. This will help stave off the fat that can be gained from too much food.

Burpees – 10 reps

Jump lunges – 10 per side

Crunches – 15 reps

Bear Crawl as far as your room takes you – 5 times

X 5

Notes

If you get this done everyday, you should make some good progress over the course of the break, and minimize any damage done by the excesses of Jesus’ birthday party.

Diet

It is almost useless to try and stick to a diet over the holiday break, but this doesn’t mean that you senselessly give into every craving you have for two weeks straight. Some basics to keep in mind can be:

Watch your calorie surplus isn’t too high

Don’t drink too much. Or limit it to spirits, i.e. not too much beer

Try and keep your protein intake roughly the same as you would normally

There will be many occasions where you feel like you want to graze on sweets and chocolate while watching TV. Instead of mindlessly doing this, perhaps be a little more critical than usual about what you are putting into your mouth. A small adjustment like this can make sure your progress isn’t effected too badly.

Finally

Enjoy yourself. It’s good to unwind and take the foot off the gas, so make sure you are rested, but don’t sabotage your progress too much, you’ve still got the rest of the year to think about!